The Marrying Kind

By Beverly Bird

And then there's the other kind

THE WRONG KIND OF MAN

Since her husband's death, there hadn't been any room in by–the–books Detective Tessa Hadley–Bryant's life for anything but police work and that was exactly the way she wanted it. Especially right now, when she was handling the toughest case of her career a murder investigation that reached into the highest levels of Philadelphia society .

So why did the department have to pick now to assign her a new partner who was everything she didn't want? John Gunner was a streetwise South Philly renegade with a reputation for breaking rules and hearts. And he already had her questioning her sanity not to mention her vow that she would never love again .

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460880746

Book preview

Chapter 1

Tessa Hadley-Bryant threw her pen onto the desk in frustration. It skidded to the edge and teetered there.

If it stays on, I’ll win this. If it falls off, he’ll win.

It fell off. She had been partnered with John Gunner for something like nine hours now, and already she wasn’t surprised.

You know what your problem is, Gunner? she demanded.

He was standing at the coffee machine directly behind her desk. Tessa didn’t turn around to look at him. She didn’t have to. She already knew that he would glance over his shoulder at her, and the left corner of his mouth would lift halfway into a grin that could melt the socks off a nun. And now one of his brows would go up. At any moment, he would chuckle.

John Gunner was the sexiest, best-looking man she had ever laid eyes on. Sorry, Matt, she added silently, then she flinched. Matt Bryant had been dead for nearly a year now. But talking to him was an old, dear habit, one that was very hard to break. He had been her husband, and they had worked together. They had shared everything, and his loss was still a gnawing hole in her heart.

Unfortunately it didn’t gnaw quite deeply enough anymore to keep her from shivering when Gunner’s laughter finally came. The sound reminded her of warm, callused hands moving slowly over her skiri.

Tessa swiveled around in her chair hard and fast.

You have no imagination, she went on accusingly.

Are we talking personally or professionally? He settled one hip on their shared desk, still grinning. Because if we’re talking personally, I guess I’d have to argue with you.

Tessa kept her eyes deliberately on his face, well above his thigh, which was now inches from her right hand.

Pardon me? she managed to say, her mind suddenly blank.

Is my lack of imagination a personal liability or a professional one, in your esteemed estimation? he repeated. Damn it, did he know the effect he had on her?

Probably, Tessa answered herself. After all, he had the same effect on every woman in the department.

I wouldn’t touch your personal life with a ten-foot pole, she said finally.

Gunner’s grin widened. Too bad.

She shot out of her chair to get her own cup of coffee. She could hear him sipping behind her, could feel his eyes following her with that speculative glint. She had noticed that look long before today. She had noticed it before Matt had died, when she had worked in the Homicide Unit of the Philadelphia Police Department side by side with Gunner and his then partner. She hadn’t seen a lot of Gunner back then, just enough to be able to recognize and anticipate that glint.

Then again, Gunner tended to reserve that look for blondes, which she definitely was not, so maybe it was just her own imagination this time. Her hair was short and thick and nearly black. She raked a hand through it self-consciously and spilled her coffee.

Damn. She grabbed a paper towel to try to blot the stain from her sleeve.

Professional then, Gunner prompted. "Tessa, I’m a cop. I deal in facts, not speculation. And don’t go getting that stubborn look on your face. You look like a mule getting ready to kick."

Thank you very much, she said stiffly.

They faced off for easily the ninth or tenth time in as many hours.

Actually it was a mighty intriguing look, Gunner thought. Her chin came up and her eyes got heated enough to sparkle. He had decided first thing this morning, upon being assigned to her, that he liked it. But he didn’t think she’d appreciate him telling her so. Tessa was...different. She didn’t seem to be the type a man could easily horse around with.

Maybe it was those high-brow Hadley genes, Gunner thought. By his reckoning she was related to just about every politician in the city, past and present. Or maybe it was the fact that she had been widowed last year. Either way, she had a quiet class about her that he didn’t know quite how to handle. Yet.

He took in her flawless skin, her short, black hair tucked behind seashell ears, the clear blue eyes. She was tall and trim, without that overly athletic hard look that so many female cops seemed prone to. Not, Gunner thought, that there weren’t a few very nice bodies among them. But this one was—

Huh? He realized that she was still talking to him.

I said, don’t talk to me about being stubborn. Not when you won’t even entertain the possibility that Christian Benami might have killed his own wife.

It was the first file to land on their shared desk, the reason Tessa had finally been reassigned to Homicide. She shared the victim’s blue blood, was well acquainted with her social circle. In spite of that, or maybe because of it, she and Gunner had been at odds over the case all day.

I’ve entertained it plenty, Gunner argued. You’ve been yakking my ear off about it nonstop.

Yakking? Tessa fought hard not to sputter, and ended by clamping her jaw shut.

I just want some solid reasoning before I accept that he did it.

"He must have."

Now there’s solid reasoning. He grinned again. "Why? Because Daphne Benami was rich and Christian wasn’t? That’s not motive. And it would take a big stretch of imagination to put him in two places at one time, no matter how much of a social climber you seem to think he is."

"Not necessarily. I mean, maybe he wasn’t in two places at one time. Maybe he just manages his time exceptionally well."

Gunner moved away from their desk. When he paced that way, he reminded her of a caged animal—restless and dangerously unpredictable. She tried not to watch him and failed.

He was a rugged-looking man, with a lopsided grin that made him appealing rather than intimidating. He had incredible shoulders—they could well be the sexiest thing about him. Other than his eyes. They were the color of smoke, and they usually seemed to hide a laugh. He had dark hair that was just shaggy enough to make a woman’s fingers itch to straighten it out. Tessa had never seen the back of his neck or his collar.

She knew that their captain didn’t like that, and their chief inspector probably liked it even less, but somehow Gunner kept squeaking by without getting a haircut. Even if they had written him up, Tessa knew it would be his most mild infraction to date. In his six years with the department, Gunner had gone through three other partners, three unmarked cars, one service revolver, and—reportedly—every female employee the city had to offer. All things considered, Tessa figured that their superiors had decided they could live with his hair just fine.

Also, she allowed, for all his eccentricities, Gunner was supposed to be good, very good at what he did. So what were a few shaggy locks as long as he kept getting his convictions?

She finally managed to find something fascinating about the coffee in her cup, but then she looked up sharply again when she smelled smoke.

Do you have to do that? she cried as he inhaled on the cigarette. Why do you have to do that at my desk?

"It’s our desk." He looked genuinely surprised.

Point taken, Tessa thought. Philadelphia was a very big city with one Homicide Unit having jurisdiction over all of it. A big Homicide Unit, in keeping with the size of their turf. Many large cities had detectives assigned to each precinct or district, but in Philly, they were all squeezed in here, on a single floor of the Police Administration Building.

Both space and funds were at a premium. Ergo, partners shared their desks, supplies, city cars. About all they had to call their own were their guns.

That didn’t mean she had to give up without a fight.

If I die of lung cancer, I’m coming back to haunt you.

He flashed her another of those grins. She’d make one hell of a ghost, he thought, and couldn’t imagine that he’d mind having her keep him awake nights. But he went and sat on someone else’s desk, a respectable distance from her.

Anyway, he went on, here’s my problem. Christian Benami would need wings to get back and forth between the Four Seasons Hotel and his home fast enough to kill his wife without any one of fifty people noticing that he was missing from that party.

One hundred people, Tessa muttered. She was scrupulously honest, even when it wasn’t to her advantage. The district cops who had first caught the case had taken statements from close to a hundred people putting Christian Benami at the Heart Association Ball on the night of December 26, two nights ago now.

Allegedly, Daphne had stayed home on the night of the Ball, complaining of a migraine. Christian had gone ahead to the charity function. When he’d gotten home shortly before one o’clock in the morning, he’d found his wife dangling from their dining room chandelier.

The coroner’s report wasn’t in yet, but their captain, Roger Kennery, had a hunch that it was going to be interesting. The hunch was strong enough that he had finally called Tessa back from her exile on desk duty in the Fifth District to work on it.

"He could have done it before he went to the party, Tessa insisted. He could have hung her from the chandelier, put on his tux and hightailed it a few blocks to the Four Seasons where he was fashionably late."

"It’s possible. Hell, anything’s possible in this business. But probable? I think you’re reaching, Princess."

Tessa stiffened instinctively at his lazy use of her nickname.

Before Matt had died, nearly everyone in the Homicide Unit had called her that at one time or another. She understood it even as she hated it. She was certainly the only detective among them with a law degree, a multimillion dollar trust fund, a brother who was the D.A., an uncle who was a Superior Court judge and grandfather who had been the governor. It had taken her a long time to win over her co-workers, to get them to accept her for the woman she was and not for her name. And even then, some of them still spoke the nickname rather bitterly and disparagingly.

Gunner didn’t say it that way. He said it in a... warm way. An intimate way that made her belly roll over.

Gunner watched her with both brows up as she began to whip back and forth beside their desk. You’re just being a snob, he went on equably.

I am not!

Sure you are. Your Hadley is showing. You’re bothered because Daphne Benami was a snooty little rich girl who married beneath her—

"Well, Christian never had a dime to his name! She met him in Paris and married him there before her family knew what was going on. And Daphne was always very wary about men wanting her for her money. You forget that I knew her."

Nope, you haven’t let me forget it for a minute. That’s why I say you’re irrationally obsessed with this case.

I am not.

He shrugged lazily, a gesture that she was already learning was pure Gunner.

Tessa crossed her arms over her chest to face him.

Christian married her for her money, she said obstinately. Then he killed her so he could have it all to himself. There’s over a million dollars in insurance money at stake here, plus the rest of her estate. Gunner, her estate’s got to be worth—

Oh, don’t be such a cynic.

Damn it, Gunner—

She wasn’t so proper or blue-blooded when she got frustrated, he noticed. He watched a faint flush creep up her neck into her cheeks, ever so gently staining that ivory skin. He decided he liked the effect.

Look, he said calmly. "We haven’t turned up anything, not one shred of evidence, not one single rumor, that their marriage was anything but blissful. So even if he did marry her for her money, then why not just stay married to her? There was no reason for him to kill the goose to get to the golden eggs—he had full access to them anyway. And let me tell you, given those pictures of Daphne we got in this morning, I’d have to say she’d be a lot more use to him alive than dead. I’d sure prefer to have her warm in my bed rather than cold and six feet under."

Incredibly Tessa felt her mouth dry out. It wasn’t that she was a prude. She had shared squad room humor with the best of them. She had survived the Police Academy. Anyone else could have made the same observation and she wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

It was just...something about Gunner, she realized. It was something about the way he said it. She ran a manicured finger inside the neckline of her silk blouse. Suddenly it felt warm and very tight.

Well, I don’t think Christian agreed with you, she said finally.

A hell of a lot of people say he was at that party, Tess, Gunner said quietly.

She sat down again and sighed. I don’t like the way he looks, Gunner, she admitted quietly. "Did you notice the way his eyes shifted when we went over there this morning? He wouldn’t quite meet mine dead-on. Because he knows who I am, and he knows that I’m not likely to believe his marriage was purely some kind of fairy tale. Daphne was a Carlson, Gunner. Do you know what that means?"

He cocked a brow. Nope, but I guess you’re going to tell me.

Damn right she was, Tessa thought. "The Carlsons don’t marry men like Christian Benami. And they definitely don’t marry men like that then immediately write them into their will as sole beneficiary. He had to have twisted her arm somehow."

Maybe with some prime loving?

Her heart hitched again at the slow, intimate drawl he rolled the words out with.

What about the Hadleys? he asked suddenly.

Tessa blinked. What about us?

"Would a Hadley be expected to marry someone like Matt Bryant—a cop, even one with a law degree?" Matt had had one, too, Gunner remembered. In fact, he was pretty sure they’d met in law school.

Tessa paled. You don’t pull any punches, do you?

"It’s a big, bad world out there, Princess. Best way to fight it is to be honest with yourself and your partner. I was just trying to make a point and get a handle on your motivations here. I’m trying to figure out why you want to go after Benami so damn badly. And you know what I’m starting to think? You’re already too emotionally involved in this thing. You’re thinking that Daphne could have been you, I’d bet. Did you write Matt into your will as sole beneficiary?"

Tessa flinched. Yes, but—

So what are you thinking here? That there but for the grace of God goeth you?

It was true, she admitted uncomfortably.

You’re letting it skew your judgment, Princess. You’re not seeing the forest for the trees.

That wasn’t true. It’s a gut instinct, she argued. I really think Christian did it.

Gunner blew out his breath and studied his coffee. All right. All right? Her jaw dropped. They’d been going around in circles on this all day. Why was he suddenly giving in now?

Maybe, he amended. I’ll make a bet with you.

What kind of bet? she asked warily.

The Medical Examiner’s report should be in anytime now, he went on, then he cocked his head a little bit as though he was trying to remember something. As a matter of fact, I know her. Doc Byerly is a fine lady.

Tessa groaned and rolled her eyes. Most women are, Gunner, where you’re concerned.

Nah. You’re letting that imagination of yours get away with you again.

Go listen in the women’s bathroom.

He grinned. Really? They talk about me in there?

Often, she said dryly.

He shook his head. That’s amazing. He wondered privately what they could be saying. All he knew for sure was that their imaginations had to be top-notch, because he honestly hadn’t been to bed with any of them.

He shook his head to clear it. Anyway, about Angela.

Angela?

Byerly. The Medical Examiner. Get with the program, Princess.

She continued to eye him suspiciously. Okay. The M.B. So what’s this bet that has to do with her?

If Angela gives us any physical evidence whatsoever that Christian did this, then I won’t smoke in your presence and contaminate your pretty little lungs for a whole week.

And if she doesn’t?

He thought about it. You can buy me a beer. At the establishment of my choice.

Her eyes narrowed. Already she knew him well enough to guess that he probably had a card up his sleeve.

"You’ve never said who you think did it, she realized aloud. All day you’ve just kept saying that it wasn’t Benami. Don’t tell me you’re buying into the suicide angle."

He looked at her levelly. Nope. If it was suicide, you’d still be uptown filing reports on dog poop.

Tessa flushed. She had badgered their captain for months to let her come back to Homicide. She had been exiled—she still couldn’t think of it in any terms but that—to the Fifth District after Matt had been killed.

I’m just warning against closing our eyes to other possible scenarios. Gunner hesitated. You’re rusty, Princess. That’s all. And you’re letting your heart rule your head here. It’s no big deal, he added quietly when he watched her stiffen. Hell, I’d be rusty, too, if I’d spent nearly a year on desk duty. But I didn’t, so I’m suggesting that we make this bet just for the hell of it, just to see where it takes us.

Rusty? He was right and she knew it, but she hated it. She looked at her watch in a deliberate attempt to end the conversation.

It was past six o’clock. She made a move for the coat tree. I’m going home.

Gunner stepped quickly in front of her, blocking her way. Come on, Princess. What have you got to lose?

Tessa shrugged, dodging around him.

"I’ll sweeten the pot. If Angela gives us the evidence you want, I’ll go two weeks without smoking."

Tessa hesitated. Now that was a deal. She had nothing to lose but a few bucks for a beer. Still, the people who had dubbed her Princess had vastly underestimated her.

Forever, she countered.

Huh? He looked disbelieving.

"No cigarettes in my presence ever. Certainly not at my—our—desk."

You drive a hard bargain, Princess.

Her chin came up a notch. Something in her eyes grinned. It was fascinating, he realized.

Take it or leave it, Gunner.

Or what?

"Or I’ll yak all day tomorrow, too."

I’ll take the bet.

Wise man. Actually, Tessa thought he was either a bone-deep gambler, or dead sure that she was wrong.

He held her coat out for her. Tessa took it from him rather than let him help her on with it. That might have meant touching him in some fashion. And she had decided at nine o’clock this morning that that was going to be a definite do-not-do with John Gunner. The Homicide Unit walls had eyes. If he so much as touched her, the department gossips would sink their teeth into it and run with it in a hurry. Tessa had decided right off the bat that the best and only way to maintain a good working relationship with Gunner was to keep him at a personal arm’s length.

She wondered how buying him a beer would fit into that, and her heart did something that almost felt like a skip.

Gunner pulled his own jacket—comfortably worn black leather—off the tree. I’ll call the M.E. tonight and see how close they are to finishing the autopsy. Maybe we can run over there first thing in the morning.

Tessa thought about it, about how much running they would actually have to do. The M.E.’s office wasn’t far. She nodded.

Granted, she thought, Gunner had only actually wrecked one of the cars whose demise was listed in his file. He had parked another in the wrong place in a city lot and it had been tagged as inoperable and towed off and destroyed. And Tessa thought she’d heard that the third car had been bombed by an ex-felon convicted on Gunner’s testimony.

Gunner held the office door open for her just as Becky Trumball, their captain’s secretary, appeared there. Gunner winked at the woman and strolled off down the hall, and Becky pivoted to watch him appreciatively.

My, oh my, she murmured.

He pulls his pants on one leg at a time, just like every other man. Trust me, Tessa responded tightly.

Becky looked back at her fast. "You’ve witnessed this?"

Tessa was taken aback. No! Nor do I want to.

Becky studied her a moment, then she shook her head. You won’t stay immune to him for long, honey. Mark my words. She handed her a file. It’s that hooker who was killed up in North Central last night. Kennery says to give it to Mel and Jeffrey.

Tessa took the file and hugged it to her chest for a moment. So have you...uh, witnessed it? Tessa didn’t care, of course. She was just curious.

What?

Gunner putting his pants on She already regretted that she had asked. Becky seemed to be struggling with herself.

The woman finally shrugged. A lady’s got to have some secrets. But Tessa thought her voice sounded pained.

No, she guessed, Becky had probably not witnessed it, and she was undoubtedly the only one in the department who hadn’t, with the exception of Tessa herself.

Becky spun out the door again. Tessa. went to put the file on Melanie Kaminski’s desk.

Immune? It didn’t feel like it. It didn’t feel like it much at all.

Chapter 2

It was snowing when she got outside, small, stinging flakes that wouldn’t amount to much, but they would definitely make her walk a miserable one. Tessa pulled her collar up and lowered her head into the icy wind instead. Her brownstone was in Elfreth’s Alley, five blocks from the Police Administration Building. She’d be halfway there before she found an empty cab at this time of night, she thought. Besides, even at its worst, she loved Philadelphia.

She passed a vendor on the corner of Seventh and Race Streets, smiling at the smell of the soft pretzels the city was renowned for. Fragrant steam rose off them in the frigid air. A teenage boy waved a copy of the Daily News at her, but she wasn’t much of a sports fan, and that was the paper’s forte. Further on she had to step around a homeless person who was already bunked down for the night on one of the sidewalk grates. The P.D. had a separate, special detail for vagrants. She knew someone would be around to collect the man shortly and take him to a shelter.

Philadelphia was... Philadelphia, she mused. A little less hostile than New York, much less transplanted than L.A. The weather was fractionally better than in Chicago, and the people were less affected than in San Francisco. Some obscure, nonsensical survey had recently revealed that the merchants and the cabbies here were the most honest of any major American city. Tessa grinned crookedly. If that was the case, then she definitely didn’t want to live anywhere else.

Drivers blared their horns just as loudly as those in Manhattan, and people rushed through center city with the same determination, but Tessa was convinced that there was a gentler mingling of smells, sounds and impressions here. There was a stronger sense of history. Her brownstone was half a block from Betsy Ross’s house, two blocks north of Penn’s Landing. It was another handful from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. When the weather was good, she sometimes detoured by that way, if only to watch the tourists.

But the weather wasn’t good. She kept an eye out for a cab, but she had been right—she was a block away from home before she saw one that was available. She jogged the rest of the way, rushed up the stoop and fumbled for her keys in her briefcase.

Maxwell, her cat, was just inside the door. He greeted her with a highly insulted squawk and she grinned down at him. It was for a good cause. She hung her coat up and dropped her briefcase into the antique Louis XIV chair